QA BLOG

The practice of laboratory medicine is undergoing rapid change, both leading as well as reflecting changes in our healthcare system. These changes are driven by new technologies that now enable molecular and genomic testing, electronic data collection and integration; personalized and evidence-based medicine, and the vertical and horizontal integration of all health care. The laboratory…

It is a well-known fact by now that most laboratory errors occur in the pre and post analytic phases of testing; that these errors can have a significant impact on patient care, and often these activities do not occur within the physical confines of the laboratory, but in other locations, often by personnel not directly…

Sometimes, you have the good fortune to find qualified staff within a short time to replace those who have left, minimizing the disruption to your daily routine. But more often than not, it takes awhile to find the “right” person for your lab. In the meantime, the remaining techs have to take on extra shifts,…

As laboratory professionals, our focus on quality begins by looking inward at our operational processes from specimen collection to result reporting, but the application of this work is then externalized, sent to the ordering physicians and applied to their patients. The way we perform and report our work, and its effect on patient care, ultimately…

According to CMS, in 2012 there were 229,815 laboratories in the U.S., of which 150,256 were Certificate of Waiver sites. Stated another way, this means that some 65% of laboratories in the U.S. do not have any routine oversight. The number of waived tests has grown from just 9 tests in 1993 to 119 analytes…